1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate, in general, to networking and more specifically, the embodiments of the invention relate to a method and a system for efficient power management in an EtherChannel.
2. Description of the Background Art
Computer networks include personal computers, workstations, routers, switches and other network infrastructure devices. Network infrastructure devices are interconnected by a medium such as network cables for transmitting data packets through physical ports. Physical ports are the connection points for the network cables and the network infrastructure devices. A physical port can include 9 pins, 25 pins, 36 pins and so forth.
A stream of data packets is transmitted through the physical ports of different network devices. The network infrastructure devices can encounter a large inflow or outflow of these streams of data packets. In this case, the data packets are stranded in a queue at a physical port of the network infrastructure device before being forwarded to a network device in the network.
To avoid the stranding of the data packets, an existing method uses a logical grouping of multiple physical ports into a logical port. This logical grouping increases the bandwidth of a data transmission channel. The logical port has multiple links that connect the network infrastructure device and the network device. Each multiple link is capable of carrying data at the same rate as the link that is connecting data packet source device to the network infrastructure device. This grouping of physical ports is sometimes referred to as port aggregation. One example of such port aggregation implementation is Cisco Technology, Inc.'s Fast EtherChannel™ port group in a Fast Ethernet network.
In an EtherChannel (or port channel), load sharing is statically configured. In statically configured channel, each port is assigned a source address, a destination address or both, in such a manner that all the physical ports in the port group are used. Using all physical ports at a low-load condition results in under utilization of the load capacity of the physical ports. Power is consumed for functioning of the physical ports, even when data packets are not passing through them. Therefore, keeping all the physical ports operational, where only a fraction of the physical ports could have catered the load requirements leads to unnecessary consumption of power.